Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Hundreds of church sex abuse victims continue to come forward

Fifteen years after the clergy sex abuse scandal in the Roman
Catholic Archdiocese of Boston broke into public view, hundreds of
victims around the world continue to come forward, including some who
say they were attacked as recently as 2001, advocates said Thursday.

Two
victims’ support groups and a lawyer who has represented more than
2,000 survivors worldwide denounced church officials for doing too
little to help those who were abused and to protect children from harm,
despite ongoing revelations about the scope of the crisis.

“You have reportedly the most moral institution in the world acting
the most immoral,” attorney Mitchell Garabedian said at a news
conference Thursday in downtown Boston. “There is no excuse for it.”

The
event coincided with the anniversary of The Boston Globe Spotlight
Team’s 2002 reports about former priest John J. Geoghan, who was
shuffled from parish to parish despite evidence of his predatory sexual
habits.

Since the 2015 release of “Spotlight,” a movie about the Globe’s
investigation into the abuse scandal, Garabedian said he has heard from
hundreds of new victims, including “dozens upon dozens” who accuse
priests or employees of the Boston Archdiocese of attacking them.

“No bishop has been punished for protecting pedophile priests,” said
Ann Hagan Webb, the Rhode Island coordinator for Survivors Network of
Those Abused by Priests, who says she was abused by a clergy member. “As
far as I can tell, the pope’s commission about child abuse has done
absolutely nothing over the last few years of its existence.”

A spokesman for the Boston Archdiocese, Terrence C. Donilon, said safeguarding children is paramount.

“The church continues to hold the protection of children as a
priority while at the same time providing support to survivors and all
people who have suffered as a result of clergy sexual abuse,” Donilon
said in a statement. “We are grateful for the efforts of all of those
who join us in this important ministry.”

The archdiocese reports that its Office of Pastoral Support and Outreach has met with more than 1,000 survivors since 2002.

At
any given time, the office provides pastoral, therapeutic, and medical
assistance to an average of 300 people, Donilon said. Some people came
forward as recently as last year, but Donilon said he couldn’t say
exactly how many.

Over the past 12 years, the archdiocese has
spent nearly $35 million on counseling, psychiatric medications, and
other services for survivors. Since 2003, it has paid about $215 million
to settle legal claims, church officials say.

After the abuse
scandal became public, the archdiocese began reporting all allegations
of clergy sex abuse to law enforcement, notifying child welfare
officials if the victim was younger than 18, and telling the public when
a clergy member was removed from active ministry for investigatory
reasons, officials said.

Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, the
archbishop of Boston, was appointed by Pope Francis to serve on an
advisory panel on sexual abuse and has personally apologized to hundreds of survivors and their relatives, the archdiocese said.

In
a letter made public Monday, Francis told bishops worldwide they must
have zero tolerance for clergy who sexually abuse children.

But
Bassam Haddad, 43, of North Andover, said he received no help from
church or civil authorities after he came forward in 2012 to say he had
been abused in Lawrence by the Rev. Ross S. Frey
from when he was 13 until he was nearly 18.

“I can’t get over
the pain,” said Haddad, who said he’s attempted suicide six times.
“It’s not fair that people like me . . . have to live our lives knowing
that these people got away with what they did.”

Frey was a priest
with the Basilian Salvatorian Order and the Melkite Catholic Church. He
died in 2014 after moving to Lebanon, where he couldn’t be returned to
the United States for prosecution, Garabedian said.

Another man
who spoke with reporters at the news conference said he was sexually
abused by Ricardo Gonzalez, who held an administrative post at Our Lady
of the Assumption Church in East Boston. He and two others sued the
archdiocese in September.

“They’re saying he was a volunteer and
they’re not taking responsibility,” said the man, who asked that his
name be withheld. “My damages are like endless.”

Gonzalez pleaded
guilty in 2015 to sexually assaulting three children during the 1980s
and was sentenced to four years in jail, according to the Suffolk
district attorney’s office.

Garabedian said some clergy sex abuse victims now coming forward
are in their late 20s or early 30s, meaning they were abused in the
1980s or 1990s.

“The clergy sexual abuse crisis is endless,” he
said. “They’ve enabled the sexual abuse to continue for decades, and
it’s not going to end in my lifetime.”